ALBUM REVIEW: LEPTUS - From My Kirkbride Cubicle

Do you know what Nirvana would have sounded like if they really dug Deadsy and The Cure, and played in a rehearsal space adorned with plastic jack-o-lanterns, while watching 'Ginger Snaps' and old re-runs of 'The Addams Family'?

Well... buy this album, and then you will.

The electro elements are an interesting touch for this band. After rolling through the music a few times I found myself humming along with some of the leads while nodding along to and enjoying the dissonant and glitchy elector pieces. At times I kinda wish the band would either commit a bit more towards the industrial vibe they flirt with, and at other times I found myself wishing the band would plunge deeper into the sorta Mudhoney/Screaming Trees/Sonic Youth/Nirvana thing that they were playing with. But I think that is a good thing. I think the careful balance this band plays with helps to create a new sound, a personal sound, for the band that makes them identifiable and interesting.

The second track, 'The Deceased Want You To Join Them' sounds like a track off Nirvana's B-side album 'Insecticide', while the fifth track, 'Voices of the Dead' has a very large Cure/Smiths/Pixies sound to it that was really brave and interesting.

I have the sneaking suspicion that if I was able to peek into the band's MP3 players, I would find a lot of Queens of the Stone Age, and a few dozen bands that never made it far out of Seattle 20 years ago.... and that is a pretty awesome thing to be able to say.

These guys have cornered a nice little 'murder-grunge' or 'horror-grunge' market, and I am digging it.